1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to dunnages for use in maintaining, cushioning, storing and/or shipping items within a container such as a box, carton, rack, pallet or other carrying device. More particularly, this invention relates to a two-piece dunnage formed from a resilient plastic material including a support member that is coupled with a base member for maintaining at least one item in a preselected arrangement within the container.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A variety of packaging materials and dunnages are used in order to maintain items within boxes, containers or other carrying devices in a desired fashion for shipping or storage purposes. For example, historically dunnages have been used to maintain items within a box upward and away from the bottom wall of the box. Such applications prove useful, for example, for keeping the item safe from undesirable contact with sharp items or to avoid possible water damage in the event the bottom wall of the box becomes wet. Dunnages are also used to keep a plurality of items in a preselected, orderly arrangement within a box or container during shipment or storage.
A variety of materials have been historically used for dunnages, including wood, Styrofoam and plastic. Recent developments in the use of plastic dunnages include using tubular members to form a dunnage. Although the tubular plastic dunnages provide advantages over wooden dunnages, for example, the former include several drawbacks and shortcomings.
First, the tubular dunnages, once formed, are useful for only a single application or only with one type of product to be shipped or stored. This results from the nature of the tubular dunnage in that it has a specific shape, size and ability to support and receive only a specific type of product. Second, the tubular dunnages are limited in that they can typically only be applied in a box when the dunnages are laid flat along the bottom of the box or laid flat between layers of the products to be shipped.
Although the plastic tubular dunnages are recyclable (according to modern technology) the need to create new dunnages each time one is presented with a product differing in shape or size introduces unnecessary costs in time and materials to produce the appropriate dunnages for each situation.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a plastic dunnage that does not suffer from the drawbacks mentioned above. Further, it is desirable to provide a plastic dunnage that does not have the shortcomings associated with the tubular dunnages described above.
Accordingly, this invention provides a two-piece plastic dunnage that is useful for maintaining, cushioning, shipping and/or storing items within a container or other carrying device in a preselected arrangement. As will be more fully described below, the two-piece nature of the plastic dunnage provided by this invention provides greater flexibility and use and the ability to interchange parts within the dunnage such that at least one of the pieces of the dunnage is reusable in an essentially infinitely variable manner.